Using Magento Commerce Segmentation & Personalization

Merchants are constantly seeking new ways to make their product or service resonate with their buying audience. The online buying experience that appeals to one group of people will not appeal to all. Trying to be everything to everyone at once is impossible, but what if it were easier to segment one’s audience so that it were possible to tailor experiences and offerings to specific groups of people or their purchase history?
Magento 2 (now Magento Commerce) has native functionality that addresses this exact merchant dilemma. The platform allows a merchant to identify and create “buckets” (groups of customers) using a variety of criteria as well as previous purchase and browsing behavior. Content can then be personalized to be delivered at different stages of the buying process, whether a customer is registered or shopping as a guest. A shopper’s navigation behavior, items added to the shopping cart and data collected during registration will all modify into which segment the buyer will be added, in real time. A single customer can also occupy multiple segments at once, depending upon the segment criteria.

How To Create a Segment

Merchants can segment customers based upon the following items, whether they are registered or shopping as a guest:

Specific products in shopping cart

Value of all items in the shopping cart

Number of items in cart

Specific products viewed

Because Magento collects and stores customer and purchase information for registered customers, there are more options available for segmenting them versus guests.

The following items can only be used for segmenting registered customers:

Specific product ordered

Specific products on a wishlist

Past order information, including billing or shipping address

Total or Average Sales Amount

Total Number of Orders / Average Over Date Range with Current Status

Total Quantity Purchased

Customer attributes and address information (such as):

Gender

Geographic Region

Birthdate

Newsletter Subscription Status

Email Address

Segmenting can be as basic as selecting “all customers from New York” or anyone who has “purchased a tie”. The functionality will also allow you to layer criteria and further define your segment as to “customers in New York and Connecticut who have viewed OR purchased a tie in the last six months”.
Below is an example where the merchant has selected the “Customers” tab on their dashboard, chosen “Segments” and has created a segment called “Active Male Demographic” aimed at “male” customers between the ages of 18 and 55 years of age by selecting gender and date of birth criteria for registered shoppers returning to the site:

How To Personalize Segments

Personalized content can now be delivered to each of the segments created in Magento Commerce. Customer segments can determine which features are delivered during the shopping experience, including CMS Banners, Related Products, Cross-Sells & Up-Sells as well as specific Shopping Cart Price Rules.

Using CMS Banners

Merchants have the ability to display an image or a block of content personalized for a specific customer segment even have it scheduled for a specific period of time. The content design of each website will determine where these banners will be shown, and this can be modified and staged constantly using the CMS functionality of the platform.

Related Products, Cross-Sells and Up-Sells

The Product Detail Page can display related products and up-sells to recommend products or add-ons that can be quickly added to cart by the customer as well as encourage additional purchases. Cross-sells will appear on the shopping cart page, much to the same result. Merchants can configure different products to display based on their customer segment. In the example below, the merchant has opted to cross-sell Men’s shorts to the segment created earlier.

Shopping Cart Price Rules

Shopping cart price rules are if/then rules that can be set up to allow discounts/promotions to customers in a specific segment. Discounts and coupon codes can be presented to customers using CMS banners, similar to those of product recommendations. A promotional offer could be configured to display on the shopping cart page for customers that have spent over $50 online within the last 30 days, for example. The shopping cart price rule would then be configured to only allow customers in that segment to redeem the special discount code.

In Conclusion

Staging content for seasonal discounts, free shipping by purchase volume, bonus offers for return guests or suggesting additional products when a related item is viewed is as simple as segmentation & personalization. Give Creatuity a call when you are ready to target your buying audience this specifically.